IMAGINE THE POSSIBILITIES

Do you ever look into the deep green shadows of a primeval forest and wonder what those secret depths hold? Do you like to write about your new and inventive discoveries while sipping a glass of fragrant wine? Do you enjoy the creative process? Then I hope you will stop a spell, enjoy the adventure, and travel with me as we imagine the possibilities...

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Sunday, October 5, 2014

In the 1960’s, I remember watching a late night black and
white re-run of a 1951 movie, “The Thing,” starring James Arness. It was about
an alien being come from space who terrorizes a military outpost. I was
terrified – the only thing stopping me from having nightmares was my dad – he
could save the world, as far as I was concerned. I remember him laughing when
the alien proved to be a plant. “Well they got that right, Peggy. It’s not
going to be something from space that gets mankind, it’ll be something small.”
Then he lowered his voice and said – “Better beware, there’s a fungus amongus.”
VanderMeer exposes the fungus amongus.

Jeff VanderMeer creates a terrifying world with an economy
of language and description that paints more than speaks. I began reading
Annihilation while sitting on the front porch of my son’s house south of
Crawfordville. Sounds of insects, amphibians, and an owl or two, combined with
rustling pine needles, and a night so dark and heavy with humidity, that the
air coated my skin. Fear pulsed through my veins. The only light in sight came
from a tiny lamp clipped to my book. Was not long before I went inside. Found I
was spending more time checking what might be in the bushes and nearby swamp,
thanks to Vandermeer, than reading. That’s the kind of book the author writes.
Intense. Thoughtful. And scary as all get out!

Start with Area X – an amorphous area of land along the
Forgotten Coast of North Florida. Add the topographical features that already
exist, then throw in Vandermeer’s imagination, and you have an exquisite tale
guaranteed to make a person think twice before entering the wilds of Saint
Marks or forests of Apalachicola.

Area X has only one entrance, which is heavily guarded by a
branch of the government called Southern Reach. The Southern Reach determines
who and when teams infiltrate the area for research. Four women, known only by
their occupation, make up the 12th team: a biologist, an
anthropologist, a surveyor, and a psychologist. The reader learns that no one
knows everything that has been found in Area X, and this is not the 12th
team. There are secrets within secrets, because no one wants to share all that
they know.We experience Area X through
the eyes of the biologist, a woman who divulges her life piecemeal through the
book, but never her name. She is, as are the other women, a tool. An implement
used by VanderMeer and the Southern Reach.

As the reader experiences the incongruences that make up
this region, we are drawn in and sucked down into VanderMeer’s world, into the
tower that is not a tower, with writing on the walls made of phosphorescent
plants, into the reeds that are now home to an indefinable monstrosity, to the
vision of a dolphin with a far too human eye, and the diminishing of the investigating
team until all we see is – well – fear, and the knowledge at the end of the
first book in the Southern Reach Trilogy, that Area X is not finished, and the
fat lady may never sing.

I have started reading and listening to “Authority,” the
second book in VanderMeer’s Trilogy, and sense this is every bit as good as
“Annihilation.” Run to your local bookstore, Barnes and Noble, Books a Million,
wherever you like to pick up your books. go on Amazon.com. Listen to “Annihilation”
on Audible. This book is a Southern classic. I hope the studios that have a
movie option on VanderMeer’s books, do make a movie of it. I’ll be there,
watching through my fingers, holding my breath, and shoving back the scream
building in my throat – just like when reading the book.

Jeff VanderMeer is a three-time winner,
thirteen-time finalist for the World Fantasy Award. His Wonderbook: The
Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction, the world's first
full-color, image-based writing guide, is now out from Abrams Image. His
Southern Reach trilogy (Annihilation, Authority, Acceptance), will be published
by FSG, HarperCollins Canada, and The Fourth Estate (UK) in 2014, as well as 12
other countries. The film rights have been optioned by Scott Rudin Productions,
and Paramount Pictures. Prior novels include the Ambergris Cycle (City of
Saints & Madmen, Shriek: An Afterword, and Finch) and Veniss Underground.
His short fiction has appeared in American Fantastic Tales (Library of
America), Conjunctions, and many others. He writes nonfiction for The
Washington Post, the LA Times, The Guardian, and many others. He has lectured
at MIT and the Library of Congress and helps run the Shared Worlds teen
SF/Fantasy writing camp out of Wofford College. With his wife Ann he has
coedited several iconic anthologies, most recently The Time Traveler's Almanac
and The Weird. You can contact him at vandermeercreative.com.